Are millennials doing The Deed more than our parents were? No. Why not? Bianca Iovino tells us why.
Millennials. I, myself, am one. The topic evokes an eye roll or seething resentment from Gen X and their elder Baby Boomers. We cope a lot of flak, but we have a lot on our plate and it’s playing havoc with our love-lives.
A study has shown millennials are having less sex during their twenties than our ancestors due to life stressors. A minority may be giving the rest of us a bad rep, but most of us are actually quite concerned at the decline of housing and job availability; not to mention university’s shrivelling fruitily AND how expensive it is just to live day-to-day.
Stress is proven to have enormous impact on the libido. So, even if we do feel like getting our freak on, I’m not surprised flaccidity is an issue because you’re too busy over analysing why it cost your weekly wage for a soy latte and avocado on toast while your parents watch Q&A in the lounge room. There’s only so much scented candles can do.
If we compare someone in their twenties today to what my mum and nanna were doing in their twenties, there’s a stark difference.
Being twenty then: pre-social media, online porn, the Kardashians etcetera. Often being born into the world with two cohabiting parents who may or may not loathe each other. Stumble through childhood and adolescence scaling trees, smoking in the toilets and piling into cars with boys. Come eighteen, if you stuck with school, venture onto university or fall into a job with your nan’s neighbour’s sister’s cousin. If you DID decide school wasn’t for you, you’d still be able to work which got you out of your rents’ house and into your own pad. Your only nutrients may have come from mum’s Sunday lunch when you came ‘round to do your washing, but you still got to have whoever you liked over without people asking whose car was parked in the driveway.
Being twenty now: you shot out the womb after your dad chanted “ATAR, bachelors, honours, masters” at your grapefruit sized body for nine months. Fragmented families are the norm and you pile the angst of it happening to you on top of all the other adult concepts swirling around your pre-teen mind. Trudge through high school to embark on the mental breakdown titled “year 12”. You find yourself crying over B pluses and it’s not much difference in university. Only there’s a miasma of despair due to your degree being pointless because there’re no jobs and the government is expecting HECS debt repayments from your casual job at Big W. Don’t think about moving out because you’ll pay close to a million dollars to live in an area where you won’t get stabbed, but your car may be stolen by a Gen-X meth-head who can’t deal with their midlife crisis. Renting is no better because it’s “dead money” so you’re back to stuffing things under your mattress to help it stop squeaking when you’ve got a lad over, and fending for yourself come dinner time because your mum has more of a social life than you do.
No wonder we aren’t doing the deed as often. As if the odds weren’t bad enough, we also must contend with a new breed called “fuck boys” and if we can’t get the right selfie angle, the chances of trying to get someone to swipe right on your Tinder profile is naught.
Words by Bianca Iovino.
Image by William Hill.
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